Playing it straight in this risky business
Welcome to Ingenue Country. As Elisha Cuthbert sits for an interview at the Mercedes Grill in Venice, all the requisite elements are in place. Blond hair, check. Big blue eyes, check. Half-eaten salad, check.
But the familiar territory has a refreshing air to it. Cuthbert comes across as older and wiser than her 21 years. She’s polite, thoughtful, and clearly serious about her work. She puts up with the media blitz that seeks out beautiful starlets but doesn’t seem to succumb to it. And although she harbors dreams about her career, she has no illusions about the industry.
As the oft-endangered daughter of Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) on the Fox series “24,” her character’s storyline could be called “The Perils of Kim Bauer.” It’s hard to imagine Cuthbert herself making the same mistakes.
This ingenue is already actually something of an old-timer. Born and raised in Canada, she started modeling at 7 and began acting a few years later on the Nickelodeon show “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” She traveled the U.S. as a correspondent for the show “Popular Mechanics for Kids” for three years. In 2001, Cuthbert won the Gemini Award (Canada’s equivalent of an Emmy) for “Lucky Girl,” a Canadian TV movie about a girl with a gambling addiction. By the ripe old age of 17, she decided to try her hand in Los Angeles, giving herself six months to make it or return home to her parents.
She spent a lonely six months, living in the Valley, with no friends or family, and she basically did nothing but read scripts, rehearse and audition. “Actually I was on top of my game, because I had nothing else to distract me; it was all I thought about.” Though it was the most difficult period of her young life so far, she says she wouldn’t change it -- she sees what she went through as a sort of school of hard knocks.
She graduated quickly. Two weeks before her time in L.A. was up, she landed “24” -- “24 different projects later exactly,” she points out.
Things are a lot busier and happier now. She thinks of her “24” cast and crew as family. She has a boyfriend, not in the business, whom she’s been dating for a year. She’s had small roles in movies such as “Old School” and “Love Actually.” And she landed her first starring role in a feature film. Fox’s “The Girl Next Door,” which opened April 9, is a boy’s coming-of-age movie cut from the same cloth as “Risky Business.”
Cuthbert plays Danielle, an ex-porn star who moves to a new neighborhood to start fresh and in the process deeply complicates the life of boy-next-door Matthew (Emile Hirsch). It’s a surprisingly sweet film, which may seem disconcerting until one recalls the plotlines of “Pretty Woman” and the aforementioned “Risky Business.” That said, “Girl” is a date movie for only young women who want to hear their dates wax poetic over Cuthbert’s charms. She is hot.
She relished the chance to do something completely different from her “24” role. Cuthbert researched the part by watching documentaries -- no, not porn -- and talking to adult-film actresses. Cuthbert, who never formally studied acting, also credits intense rehearsal with director Luke Greenfield for creating a fully rounded character rather than a caricature. She loved the process and the role.
When asked about his co-star, actor Timothy Olyphant immediately deadpans: “I didn’t touch her. When you’re talking about actresses that probably have a lot of websites, I just think it’s important to get that out of the way.” He pauses a moment. “I haven’t been to any of them.”
Kidding aside, Olyphant -- who plays Danielle’s porn producer, Kelly, with a menacing charm -- has nothing but praise for his co-star. “I thought there was a maturity to her that was refreshing. And to be quite honest with you, not knowing that much about her, I was pleasantly surprised.
“Given the position that she’s in and the age that she is, it’s probably very easy to get caught up in the things that could easily occupy your mind all the time when you’re very young and very pretty and in Hollywood. I don’t think by and large you expect anything else from that type of celebrity.” But Cuthbert was all about the work. “And it shows,” Olyphant says. “She gave a very mature, layered performance.”
Cuthbert doesn’t relish the celebrity, but she does what’s required to promote her work. She reluctantly appeared on her second Maxim cover because the studio asked her to, and she knew it would reach a potential audience. Alongside photos highlighting her physical attributes, the article is pretty tasteful -- on her part. Prodded for juicy tidbits, she didn’t rise to the bait. “I’m sure the guys read my answers and go, ‘Boring!’ ” Cuthbert says with a chuckle. “But I’m just going to be me. If I have no stories I’m certainly not going to make them up.”
The recent awards season didn’t interest her much either. “I can never remember what I’m wearing,” she admits, referring to the media’s inevitable red-carpet query. She enjoys the chance to honor fellow actors’ work but dislikes the long evenings and the stress involved in getting ready for them. “It’s like going to prom,” she says. She didn’t like her prom? “I cared more about the graduation ceremony than the party. It was a big moment. I knew bigger things were coming.”
After “The Girl Next Door,” bigger things are sure to come. But Cuthbert dismisses the idea of a strategy for her career. “In this business there’s no corporate ladder where I can see myself as CEO in 10 years. But I definitely want to look back in 10 years and say that was a nice body of work and hopefully establish myself as someone who’s going to be around for a very long time.”